Busch Gardens Williamsburg Project 2023: DarKoaster (Multi-Lap Intamin Straddle Coaster)

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Honest question: the music that plays in the outside queue................is that recycled from when they did a HOS maze in the building? It sounds like it but want to confirm instead of letting my cynic bias assume it's right.
 
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We went on Sunday at rope drop and the sign said to go thru Italy for DarKoaster. They also had a list of the village openings and it said that Germany opened at 10:30 so my wife and I figured we'd ride Pantheon quickly first. Sure enough while on the first train we could see people crossing the bridge so I started to get nervous. By the time we made it to DK (maybe 10:17ish) it had a posted 45 minute wait even though you couldn't see anyone in the queue outside. We went for it anyways and only waited 20 minutes for the front.
 
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CoasterAuditor said:
Honest question: the music that plays in the outside queue................is that recycled from when they did a HOS maze in the building? It sounds like it but want to confirm instead of letting my cynic bias assume it's right.
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I thought it was as well, but I don't know how we'd go about confirming it.

Either way, audio throughout leaves a ton to be desired.
 
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First and only ride on DK yesterday. My quick, no spoilers review? Dont wait more than 15 min for it. Fun ride itself, but if it was just 100% in the dark, it may have been just, if not more, thrilling. At least then you wouldn't have been able to see from end to end when the occasional lights do turn on. They really missed the mark by making the ride tame enough for smaller kids, but just scary enough that a lot of younger kids wouldn't want to ride, but not themed enough to make it interesting for adults. Pick a lane BGW. They didn't and it won't be nearly that popular as soon as it's not the newest ride anymore. That's not even getting into the capacity issues (385 est R/Hr, 5 disp @ 1:33, around opening on 6/13).
 
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ControlsEE said:
First and only ride on DK yesterday. My quick, no spoilers review? Dont wait more than 15 min for it. Fun ride itself, but if it was just 100% in the dark, it may have been just, if not more, thrilling. At least then you wouldn't have been able to see from end to end when the occasional lights do turn on. They really missed the mark by making the ride tame enough for smaller kids, but just scary enough that a lot of younger kids wouldn't want to ride, but not themed enough to make it interesting for adults. Pick a lane BGW. They didn't and it won't be nearly that popular as soon as it's not the newest ride anymore. That's not even getting into the capacity issues (385 est R/Hr, 5 disp @ 1:33, around opening on 6/13).
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I rode it last week - waited maybe 45 minutes but was lucky to get on as it was closed most of the afternoon -at least intermittently- I thought it was the weakest ride in the park - pretty boring, just dark with weak or no theming.
 
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mikes said:
I finally rode it on Monday 6/19 If they can do some work on the theming it could be pretty cool, but otherwise not worth the wait if it's longer than 45 mins. I would have preferred an interactive shooter in this space.
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I thought exactly the same things.

1.) The ride is "okay".
2.) I would NEVER wait over 30 minutes for this.
3.) Even a decent / fun style interactive shooter would have been good in this space... and would have a lot more re-rideability.
 
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Rode it for the first time today and i got to ride it twice. Waited a hour for the first time and a hour and 20 the second time because it broke down twice. It’s a fun ride but you just need to have the right expectations going in, it feels great on a hot and humid day and it was a good way to get out of the rain and thunderstorms today. Would never wait over 30 minutes though unless it’s stormy.
 
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Finally got to ride it this weekend (twice) and came away with the opinion that this is a solid addition to the park that I enjoyed. As far as the ride itself, I honestly don’t get a lot of the extreme hate this attraction gets. It is pretty much what was advertised … a family ride. To anyone comparing this to Grover … just stop. I think some went in expecting way too much (like another Pantheon) and were let down. Overall, a good pop of speed and decent effects. Far from perfect but still good. On other factors outside of the ride itself, I do agree with the criticism. The ops on this thing are abysmal and if they are running one train, either give up and walk away or hunker down and hope you don’t have to go pee anytime soon. Cool ride experience but not worth more than “maybe” a 30 minute wait. This is a rope drop or bust type of thing. I roped dropped this on a Thursday morning and got to ride within 5 minutes of getting in the line. I roped dropped it again this morning (Saturday) and had to wait an hour from the haunted picture room and why … because they were running one train!! And to make matters worse, literally every time except for once, everyone would be sitting with lap bars down, the workers would all give a thumbs up as if they were good to go and EVERY TIME they would unlock the lap bars and do it all over again. Took too long to get 10 people on their way. Really think something could be wrong with the sensors. Adding to that, there is NO story line to this thing … lol. Either way fun ride but work on wait time, add a story line, and you have yourself a winner.
 
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Alot of downtime been here two weekends in a row, and two weekends in a row ride was down. Like as soon as the park opens, I believe in the future this will be a problematic ride. Each time the staff has no estimate to when the ride will be running.... For a brand new ride, that is bad.
 
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Bigkev1 said:
Alot of downtime been here two weekends in a row, and two weekends in a row ride was down. Like as soon as the park opens, I believe in the future this will be a problematic ride. Each time the staff has no estimate to when the ride will be running.... For a brand new ride, that is bad.
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It's a brand new ride with somewhat new tech from a manufacturer that isn't known for reliability. Plus all new rides have much lower uptime in their first year. By midway through next season it should be doing better. Not perfect but better.
 
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AlpenChariot said:
It's a brand new ride with somewhat new tech from a manufacturer that isn't known for reliability. Plus all new rides have much lower uptime in their first year. By midway through next season it should be doing better. Not perfect but better.
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Shouldn't the park have a decent amount of time with the ride and manufacturer at this point. Considering Pantheon has the same manufacturer, and DarKoaster has run 1000s of times. I understand that's it's my frustration speaking too but the ride went down twice before 1p today, it was literally the only coaster today with over a 30 min wait(90mins). It's also the coaster most guest are excited about, it just seems the park would test the ride consistently to work out all kinks. By this point in the season, but so be it. I'm very discouraged to say the least, 4 attempts to ride over 2 weekends and the ride was down or went down all 4x SMH, this is already Mach Tower bad in my book. PS I didn't ride Mach Tower for the first 2 yrs because operations were so bad.
 
Think of it this way, it may take hundreds of thousands of cycles in various operational conditions (fortunately it's inside so weather isn't much of an issue) before most kinks are worked out.

I think a lot of that is more to do with maintenance working through various scenarios and learning how to both handle existing issues efficiently and prevent future issues based on manufacturer recommendations.
 
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Jonesta6 said:
Think of it this way, it may take hundreds of thousands of cycles in various operational conditions (fortunately it's inside so weather isn't much of an issue) before most kinks are worked out.

I think a lot of that is more to do with maintenance working through various scenarios and learning how to both handle existing issues efficiently and prevent future issues based on manufacturer recommendations.
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This and that while the park has other intamin rides, they're not the same ride vehicle, launch system, and the programming is going to be a bit different compared to pantheon.
 
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Currently in line for DarKoaster (75 minutes btw, yes I’m crazy) and people are using the outlets on the fan poles to charge their phone, one person took the cover off of one of them (not sure if they broke it).

The lengths people will go to charge their phone 😂
 
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ZBski said:
Currently in line for DarKoaster (75 minutes btw, yes I’m crazy) and people are using the outlets on the fan poles to charge their phone, one person took the cover off of one of them (not sure if they broke it).

The lengths people will go to charge their phone 😂
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i can say, as a member of Gen Z, we are all addicted to our phones 😂
 
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